‘Let me hear you play. Poor grandpapa is seldom down-stairs of an evening now. There could be no harm in your bringing your violin, and playing a little now and then when he has gone back to his room. His room is so far from the parlour that he would never hear you; and, after all, playing the violin is not a crime. Do let me hear you, Lucius! The old sweet sad music will remind me of my father. And I know you play divinely,’ she added, looking up at him with innocent admiring eyes. What could he do? He was mortal, loved music to distraction, and had some belief in his own playing. ‘So be it, my sweetest. I’ll bring the Amati; but you must stow him away in some dusky corner between whiles, where your grandfather cannot possibly discover him, or he might wreak his vengeance upon my treasure. After all, as you say, there can be no harm in a violin, and it will be hardly a breach of honour for me to play you a sonata now and then, after my patient has gone to bed. Your father must have been a fine player, or his playing would have hardly made such an impression upon you as a child of seven.’ ‘Yes,’ she answered dreamily, ‘I suppose it was what you call fine playing. I know that it was sometimes mournful as the cry of a broken heart, sometimes wild and strange—so strange that it has made me cling closer to his knees, as I sat at his feet in the dusky room, afraid to look round lest I should see some unearthly form conjured out of the shadows by that awful music. You know how children look behind them with scared faces as they cower round the Christmas fire, listening to a ghost story. I have felt like that when I listened to my father’s playing.’ ‘I will bring you pleasanter music, Lucille, and conjure no ghosts out of the evening shadows—only happy thoughts of our future.’ This was the prelude to many peaceful evenings, full of a placid happiness which knew not satiety. Lucius brought his Amati, feeling very much like a conspirator when he conveyed the instrument into Mr. Sivewright’s house by stealth, as it were, and gave it into Lucille’s keeping, to be hidden by day, and only to be brought forth at night, when her grandfather had retired to his remote bedchamber, beyond ken of those sweet sounds.